Archive | Waimauku

3 Hibiscus Coast properties and 2 in the north-west have been sold by Bayleys agents, and an Orewa showroom leased.

North-east

Orewa

Florence House, 16 Florence Avenue, unit 4D (pictured above):Features: 216m² top office floor of A grade, 3-level commercial building completed in 2011, 7 basement parking spaces, new 3-year lease with one 3-year right of renewalRent: $60,000/year net + gstOutcome: sold to an investor for $1.075 million at a $5.5% yieldAgent: Mustan Bagasra

3089 Great North Rd: Features: 604m² freehold corner site, a 380m² office buildingOutcome: sold to an owner-occupier for $1.25 million with vacant possessionAgent: Mustan Bagasra

791 State Highway 16, Waimauku.

Waimauku

791 State Highway 16: Features: landscaped 2.5946ha in general rural zone, 1298m² of commercial & industrial buildings; Hip Group Ltd, which leases the property both for the Provenance café & restaurant and as a food production & distribution centre for its other cafés & restaurants, has exercised the first of 2 2-year rights of renewalRent: $123,000/year net + gstOutcome: sold for $2.03 million at 6.06% yieldAgents: Scott Kirk & Damien Bullick

The first property up for sale at NAI Harcourts’ auction at the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron yesterday, an Otara shop with office space above, was sold under the hammer at a 4.5% yield, but that was the end of the good run as the remaining 8 properties were passed in.

Almost all of them required a vendor bid to get things started and 4 finished with the vendor’s indicator as the last bid.

Woodhill Black Sand Ltd (David & Joy Steele, Woodhill) won a court order today to enforce possession of the property it bought in a mortgagee sale from barrister Barry Hart.

ANZ National Bank Ltd said in an injunction hearing in May it was owed $30 million, with interest accruing at more than $200,000/month, but the combined capital value of the properties was put at $26 million.

Mr Hart withdrew his second injunction application against the sale of his 965ha at Waimauku in July, and undertook not to lodge further caveats.

However, when Mr Steele, a former deputy mayor of Rodney, went to take possession of the 39ha adjoining his family property that he bought for $800,000, his way was blocked.

In the Auckland High Court this morning, Justice Geoffrey Venning said Mr Steele’s company was originally to have settled its purchase on 25 June, but this was delayed until 9 August because of Mr Hart’s caveats.

The Steele company was now the registered owner but, although the caveats had been lifted by court order, the judge said Mr Hart “moved stock on to the property and asserted a right as to a lease, the same right which this court ordered did not support the caveat”.

Justice Venning said there was no basis for opposition to the sale by Mr Hart, who didn’t appear at today’s hearing, and Mr Steele had also had difficulty serving documents on him.

The judge ordered Mr Hart & agents to immediately vacate the property, immediately remove stock and not to re-enter the property. He also ordered that personal service could be dispensed with and service of the orders could be via Mr Hart’s email address.

Under an earlier ex parte order, Mr Hart was told not to remove certain items, including fixtures such as the water supply system, fences & gates.

Mr Hart’s law chambers on Jervois Rd, Ponsonby, held by a trust company, were sold in a separate Bayleys tender at the end of May and one of his companies, BJ Hart Ltd, was wound up in June on Inland Revenue’s application.

He’s also been found guilty on allegations of professional misconduct for overcharging clients. The Lawyers & Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal hasn’t made its decision on that matter yet but, at the age of 75, he could be struck off the register.

Auckland barrister Barry Hart withdrew his second injunction application against the sale of his 965ha of land at Waimauku yesterday, and undertook not to lodge further caveats.

The withdrawal & undertakings given to Justice Geoffrey Venning in the Auckland High Court mean ANZ National Bank Ltd’s international mortgagee tender, which closed with Bayleys on 3 May, can proceed to settlement.

Bayleys has sold the property in 3 separate parcels, with settlements which were to have been made on 25 June & 6 July. Mr Hart withdrew an injunction application on 21 June but lodged a new one 4 days later, withdrawing it only when it went to hearing yesterday.

Counsel for the bank, Laura O’Gorman, told Justice Venning she didn’t want to stop at the withdrawal, but wanted to proceed with the hearing to ensure there could be no further caveats or injunction applications preventing sale. She said more caveats had been lodged, but hadn’t yet made it on to the property titles.

After a short hearing, with Mr Hart appearing for himself & his companies but not making submissions, Justice Venning made the formal order dismissing his injunction application then ordered removal of the caveats.

Earlier in the day, Mr Hart had told the judge he’d made another overture to the bank and been told the bank would look at his proposal and give him an answer today.

The bank said in an injunction hearing in May it was owed $30 million, with interest accruing at more than $200,000/month, but the combined capital value of the properties was put at $26 million.

Mr Hart went to court on 18 May to stop the tender proceeding but failed to get an interim injunction then. However, his sister, Audrey Propst, did get an interim injunction on 11 May stopping mortgagee sale of her interest in 2 properties, one at Waimauku and the other at Muriwai, because the bank hadn’t supplied correct information to show what was required to remedy default.

The Hart land included the 464ha Renall’s Farm that Cornerstone Group Ltd director Rick Martin wanted to turn into a rural estate with village clusters. Mr Hart successfully opposed the private plan change Mr Martin lodged in 2008 for the land next to Mr Hart’s holdings at the time, including the Woodhill Stud. The plan change would have incorporated Renall’s Farm within the area of the Waimauku structure plan, enabling development.

Cornerstone’s assets were put on the market with the advent of the global financial crisis and Renall’s Farm was bought by Malory Corp Ltd (Sean Parsons, Takapuna, of chartered accountancy firm Hall & Parsons). Mr Parsons resigned from Malory Corp in March 2011 and Mr Hart became its sole director.

Mr Hart’s law chambers on Jervois Rd, Ponsonby, held by a trust company, were sold in a separate Bayleys tender at the end of May

One of his companies, BJ Hart Ltd, was wound up on Wednesday 6 June on Inland Revenue’s application, with no appearance in its defence. An attempt to recall that order was suggested, but vacated the next day.

Leading Auckland barrister Barry Hart withdrew an injunction application to prevent the sale of his extensive property holdings at Waimauku today, then said his dispute with the bank was close to resolution.

ANZ National Bank Ltd took the 965ha to international tender through Bayleys in March, closing on 3 May. Counsel for the bank, Laura O’Gorman, told Justice Murray Gilbert in the Auckland High Court today sale & purchase agreements had been entered into, but not settled.

The injunction hearing began with Mr Hart’s counsel, John Katz QC, telling Justice Gilbert the court’s timetable order had been breached, submissions hadn’t been filed and he no longer had instructions.

Mr Hart took over, telling the judge negotiations had been under way for a few days “and we’re that close to a resolution”. He said that was part of the reason for withdrawing the injunction application: “I would hope by the close of the day that we would have reached that resolution.”

When the judge asked about costs for the court fixture, Ms O’Gorman said that would be irrelevant because of the shortfall in meeting the bank’s demand for repayment of its loans. The bank said in an injunction hearing in May it was owed $30 million, with interest accruing at more than $200,000/month, but the combined capital value of the properties was put at $26 million.

Mr Hart went to court on 18 May to stop the tender proceeding but failed to get an interim injunction then. However, his sister, Audrey Propst, did get an interim injunction on 11 May stopping mortgagee sale of her interest in 2 properties, one at Waimauku and the other at Muriwai, because the bank hadn’t supplied correct information to show what was required to remedy default.

Mr Hart’s law chambers on Jervois Rd, Ponsonby, held by a trust company, were sold in a separate Bayleys tender 3 weeks ago.

One of his companies, BJ Hart Ltd, was wound up on Wednesday 6 June on Inland Revenue’s application, with no appearance in its defence. 2 hours later barrister Davina Murray told me she was seeking the recall of the liquidation order, initially hoped it could be heard in the afternoon and later said it would be heard on Friday 8 June. Come Friday, with no hearing on the High Court list, Ms Murray said the recall application had been vacated on Thursday.

Prominent Auckland barrister Barry Hart’s application for an injunction to stop sale of 965ha of his land at Waimauku was put into a court timetable yesterday, leaving the bank which put it up for mortgagee tender to continue with the sale.

Justice Warwick Gendall said in a brief Auckland High Court hearing yesterday the timetable would take the injunction application to a hearing as soon as possible after 7 June: “In the meantime there is no interim relief or orders.”

The tender through Bayleys closed on 3 May and counsel for ANZ National Bank Ltd, Laura O’Gorman, said the sale & purchase agreement had settlement dates, so having a definite hearing date would give more certainty for the transaction. However, counsel for Mr Hart, John Katz QC, said only conditional agreements had been entered into so the court timetable would be no impediment to the sale process.

Justice Gendall told Ms O’Gorman that, if there were settlement dates, “then just proceed. If there’s no interim injunction to prevent sale, then proceed. If you have as a consequence breached the rights of any of the plaintiffs, then damages would be the remedy. At the moment there’s no impediment on the defendant proceeding with the sale process.”

Notice of the mortgagee tender came in March as one of Mr Hart’s companies, BJ Hart Ltd, faced an application by software systems company Seashell Systems Ltd to wind it up. Mr Hart’s company settled that application but Inland Revenue entered the picture, substituting on the application last week. The IRD application has been adjourned to Wednesday 6 June.

The Hart land includes the 464ha Renall’s Farm that Cornerstone Group Ltd director Rick Martin wanted to turn into a rural estate with village clusters. Mr Hart successfully opposed the private plan change Mr Martin lodged in 2008 for the land next to Mr Hart’s holdings at the time, including the Woodhill Stud. The plan change would have incorporated Renall’s Farm within the area of the Waimauku structure plan, enabling development.

When Cornerstone assets were put on the market with the advent of the global financial crisis, Renall’s Farm was bought by Malory Corp Ltd (Sean Parsons, Takapuna, of chartered accountancy firm Hall & Parsons), which pursued Cornerstone’s appeal against Environment Court rejection of the plan change through to the High Court. However, in March 2011, Mr Parsons resigned from Malory Corp and Mr Hart became its sole director.

Nearly 1000ha at Waimauku owned by prominent barrister Barry Hart and his family interests has been put up to mortgagee tender by ANZ National Bank Ltd.

It includes the 464ha Renall’s Farm that Cornerstone Group Ltd director Rick Martin wanted to turn into a rural estate with village clusters has been put up to mortgagee tender.

Notice of the mortgagee tender comes as one of Mr Hart’s companies, BJ Hart Ltd, faces an application by software systems company Seashell Systems Ltd to wind it up. That application is due for hearing in the Auckland High Court on Friday 30 March.

The 464ha is the largest part of the 965ha beside State Highway 16 being taken to international tender through Bayleys, closing Thursday 3 May.

The whole property up for tender is in 12 titles which can be tendered for as one holding or in individual lots. 7 titles containing 915ha are being used for stock finishing, fattening & cropping and the other 5 are lifestyle blocks, 4 with houses and one vacant. One title of 39ha next to the Woodhill Forest has resource consent for sand extraction.

Mr Hart successfully opposed the private plan change Mr Martin lodged in 2008 for the land next to Mr Hart’s holdings at the time, including the Woodhill Stud. The plan change would have incorporated Renall’s Farm within the area of the Waimauku structure plan, enabling development.

When Cornerstone assets were put on the market with the advent of the global financial crisis, Renall’s Farm was bought by Malory Corp Ltd (Sean Parsons, Takapuna, of chartered accountancy firm Hall & Parsons), which pursued Cornerstone’s appeal against Environment Court rejection of the plan change through to the High Court.

However, in March 2011, Mr Parsons resigned from Malory Corp and Mr Hart became its sole director.

Renall’s Farm – which Mr Martin named Waimauku Estate for his project, where he wanted to create a blueprint for sustainable mixed development – lies just outside the Waimauku village, in the former Rodney District’s west and outside the boundary of Auckland’s metropolitan urban limits. The council had 3 options for growth in the village of about 960 residents before Mr Martin came along, proposing expansion to consider his plans for 1375 homes & a possible 3000 residents just outside town.

In a High Court decision in May 2010, Justice John Priestley sided with the view adopted by the Rodney District Council in 2008 and backed by the Environment Court in 2009: Although the Waimauku structure plan process wasn’t a statutory one (and had no right of appeal), it counted in the council’s adoption of the Resource Management Act line that, once considered, a proposal for a zone change needn’t be considered again within 2 years. That kept the Cornerstone project outside Waimauku and outside the urban limit.

Mr Martin has stayed out of the limelight since the collapse of the property development market, continuing to sell apartments in the Sentinel project he developed in Takapuna. His other big land interest was in the freehold title to 44ha of Albany Centre land which he bought from Neil International Ltd in December 2004. He sold the head lease on the whole site to Symphony Group Ltd but, in the midst of the global financial crisis, court action resulted in the leasehold being collapsed and freehold development sites again coming on the market.

Cornerstone Group Ltd’s Rick Martin thought making his Waimauku Estate project the fourth, most intensive option for consideration in a council structure plan consultative process gave him a second chance at approval.

Instead, he was overwhelmingly defeated on the voices in the structure plan consultation, and the private plan change Cornerstone lodged in December 2007 has been frozen out of consideration on its merits under a resource management process for the third time.

The third freeze-out came this month in the High Court decision of Justice John Priestley, whose job was not to even look at the merits but to consider proper procedure.

In a decision on 17 May, Justice Priestley sided with the view adopted by the Rodney District Council in September 2008 and backed by the Environment Court in August 2009: Although the Waimauku structure plan process wasn’t a statutory one (and had no right of appeal), it counted in the council’s adoption of the Resource Management Act line that, once considered, a proposal for a zone change didn’t need to be considered again within 2 years.

The 464ha Waimauku Estate farm property lies just outside the Waimauku village, in Rodney District’s west and outside the boundaries of Auckland’s metropolitan urban limits. The council had 3 options for growth in the village of about 960 residents before Mr Martin came along, proposing expansion to consider his plans for 1375 homes & a possible 3000 residents just outside town.

Mr Martin believed, in 2007, the procedure for his request for a plan change would run alongside the structure plan for a while, then be considered outside the 2-year timeframe. Meanwhile, if the council could be convinced to support his project as the best growth option under the structure plan, he’d win time.

As it happened, Mr Martin was out of time in more ways than one. The longer the Waimauku Estate project took to win approval, the closer it was to the end of a very long upward stage of the property cycle. He was nearing completion of the Sentinel apartment tower in Takapuna, and sales there were hit by the arrival of the global financial crisis in 2008. He had other development sites which, through that international crisis, had no short- or medium-term development future, and he owned the freehold under 44ha of the Albany Centre, where leasehold development was slow.

Mr Martin is still nominally the Albany owner, though it’s the banking backers of freehold & leasehold interests who are working on collapsing the leases to create a package of saleable freehold sites there.

At Waimauku, he sold the farm to Malory Corp Ltd (Sean Parsons, Takapuna, of chartered accountancy firm Hall & Parsons), which pursued Cornerstone’s appeal against Environment Court rejection through to the High Court.

The council rejected the Waimauku Estate proposal on 3 grounds:

The council had considered & rejected the substance of the request (as a potential growth option as part of the Waimauku structure plan) within the last 2 yearsThe request wasn’t in accordance with sound resource management practice and had been considered & rejected as a potential growth option for Waimauku and was therefore in direct conflict with the council’s agreed policy outcomes for Waimauku, andThe request was inconsistent with part 5 of the Resource Management Act because it wouldn’t give the required effect to the Auckland regional policy statement and would directly conflict with plan changes the council initiated, which were designed to give effect to stated outcomes for Waimauku.

The Waimauku structure plan wasn’t in force when the council rejected Cornerstone’s private plan request in September 2008, although its preparation was well advanced and the consultation phases had been completed. The council adopted the plan in May 2009.

Justice Priestley said a structure plan was derived in part from section 2.6.2(8) of the regional policy statement, which says significant new areas proposed for urban development or for countryside living purposes must be provided through the structure planning process or some similar mechanism.

Under chapter 13 of the proposed district plan, the district council envisaged through section 13.6.1.4 that it would use structure plans as a regulatory mechanism to “manage the development of ‘greenfield’ areas and areas with residential or business zoning which are as yet undeveloped”. The structure plans are designed to be included in the district plan to give them statutory effect, and will remain in the district plan until the bulk of the structure plan area has become urbanised.

Justice Priestley upheld Malory counsel David Kirkpatrick’s submission that, unless one of the limited rejection grounds in clause 25(4), schedule 1 of the Resource Management Act existed, the request for a private plan change had to proceed to public notification, submissions & a hearing in accordance with the well established procedures of the act. But the judge said the Environment Court had addressed those threshold tests, and also hadn’t misdirected itself with a discussion on the regional policy statement.

The Environment Court has ruled in favour of Rodney District Council’s decision to reject Cornerstone Group Ltd (Rick Martin)’s private plan change request for a residential & business development at Waimauku.

Cornerstone lodged its request for the plan change in December 2007 but has since sold the 464ha Waimauku Estate farm, 2km north of the existing Waimauku village, to Malory Corp Ltd (director Sean Parsons, of Milford accountancy firm Hall & Parsons CA Ltd), which wanted to continue with the proposal.

The Waimauku Estate scheme was to have accommodated 1375 homes & 3000 residents – comparfed to Waimauku’s current population of 930.

The council rejected the development proposal in September 2008 and Malory appealed this decision through the Environment Court.

The council rejected the application on the grounds that it was inconsistent with a structure plan the council had recently adopted for Waimauku, which limited growth in the area.

Rodney District Council has adopted a structure plan for Waimauku to guide the town’s development over the next 20 years.

District planning manager Peter Vari said on Friday: “A key aim of the plan is to preserve Waimauku’s rural village character, which local residents have said they like about the town.”

Cornerstone Group Ltd director Rick Martin tried – but has so far failed – to create a development just north of the town which would have had a significant effect on the whole area. It was strongly opposed – even to the extent of Waimauku residents crossing the district to oppose Cornerstone projects at Silverdale & Orewa.

Cornerstone proposed a private plan change to develop a number of concepts on its 464ha farm 2km north of the existing township, including 2600 dwellings at one stage, which would have boosted the population by 4000. The estate would have had its own sewage plant.

The council could have adopted the private change as its own and led it through the application process, approved it for processing without endorsing it, or rejected it. It chose rejection.

Cornerstone’s Waimauku Estate private plan change – now for 1375 dwellings in & around Renall’s Hill, and now owned by Malory Corp (Sean Parsons, of Milford accountancy firm Hall & Parsons CA Ltd) will be heard in the Environment Court in July. Mr Vari said the council would defend its decision not to progress the plan change.

He said a key aim of the council-led structure plan was to enable the council to control where development occurs, so the village feel of the township can be retained: “The limited amount of growth shown in the structure plan will also allow the council to concentrate major infrastructure provision in identified growth areas in the west, such as Kumeu-Huapai.

“The structure plan identifies the Waimauku Station Rd area as a site for shops & office activities over the longer term. The plan allows for limited residential expansion around south-west Waimauku over the short term. The town is expected to be connected to a public wastewater system in around 10 years’ time. Over the longer term, once a wastewater system is in place, the plan allows for limited residential expansion in south-east Waimauku.

“Development around the Renall’s Hill & Cell Phone Tower Hill areas will be restricted and the rural areas surrounding Waimauku will stay rural to separate it from the neighbouring towns of Kumeu-Huapai, Muriwai & Woodhill.”

The plan also identifies a suitable location for new public toilets and for the relocation of the train station to a site more accessible to most Waimauku residents.

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